The Rock & Roll Three-Way: Playin’ The High Class Joints and the Low Class Joints
Was it every New Hampshire whiteboy’s dream to be sitting on one of four unmatched chairs around a table with a wad of napkins stuffed under one leg to keep it steady, while drinking homemade whiskey from a paper cup just as a local Mississippi Hill Country band of roustabouts counts off a shuffle and lays down one of the dirtiest blues beats ever heard…or was it just me? Yeah, I thought so.
The things you can’t have are the things you want the most. I always wanted an authentic southern Juke Joint / Roadhouse / Honky Tonk experience. I always wanted to feel the room sweat and heave on hot southern summer night while the patrons shimmied and wobbled to the rhythms of the house band. I always wanted to stomp out a beat and be part of the old call and response. I always wanted to pass the jug and wield a greasy spoon. I wanted to be frozen in time in black and white as part of the scene.
Like I said, in N.H. I wasn’t going to get that. I wanted it then and want it now. I even wrote a post on what my roadside haunt would be like: Judd’s Juke Joint: where good people go and where the good times always roll. Yep, Good Ol’ N.H. is great place, but its not a hotbed for country, delta or Chicago blues, let a lone it being much more redneck than black-skinned.
Just because we didn’t have any of these experiences, didn’t mean I wouldn’t go looking for them. There was this one place on the N.H. / Massachusetts border called, “Bill’s Curve In”. Bill’s was situated, as suggested, on the bend of this old two-lane road. From where I lived, it was a 25-30 minute hell ride there and back.
If you ever found yourself headed to or leaving from Bill’s, you knew you were scrapping the barrel. A trip to Bill’s…and I only took one…started off as a result of a very slow night on the local bar scene. When someone would shout out, “Hey, let’s go to Bill’s”, you knew that guy had been knocking back his share of the crazy water.
A trip to Bill’s was daunting for a few reasons: you were probably already drunk before you decided to go, you were going to be much more drunk on the way home and to get there and back you were going to have to cross the state line. Bill’s was a place where people went to be primal, brood in the shadows and bend elbows.
Bill’s Curve In was one of the most lowdown tittie bars in the North East. We’re not talking the “Bada Bing” either. We’re talking one big room with holes punched in walls, suspended ceilings with missing panels, naked light bulbs swinging from the rafters and decor that was part dump and part crack house. The room was usually filled with hulking drunken goons, wirery punks looking for fights and lonely bastards sniffing around for cheap thrills.
“Rape, murder…it’s just a kiss away“
Yeah, it was a tense room, but that wasn’t the craziest of shit going on there. The crazy shit was “the stage”. In the middle of the room there was what can best be described as a corral…like you’d keep hogs in. Guys were lined up around this, hanging over it, slapping and pounding on it and shouting and snorting at the gals inside of it.
Stage…ah, there was no real stage. The stage was actually a big wood table/box covered with a nasty looking black cloth (I shudder to think what a black light would have told us) and it was on wheels. If one of the heathens wanted to offer up a few bucks for the girl to do her thing, he would shout at her and she would wheel the stage over to him. Let’s not even get describing the local talent [wincing].
I’ve been a part of and seen some crazy shit in my days, but this was some crazy shit.
We had been there not but an hour and we could feel the walls closing in. All five of us must have all been twenty-two or twenty-three and we looked squeaky clean against this backdrop. Needless to say we were getting a few looks. One way or another, everyone of those poor bastards in the room that night were going to get what they came for: drinking, fighting or fucking. We wanted no part of their festivities.
We ended up staying another hour or so. We decided to leave when the bouncer told us that the natives had become restless and were looking to take us out back and beat us to pulps. He told us he didn’t care if they did it, but he would be the one responsible for cleaning up the blood and picking up all of the teeth. Apparently, he had to stay extra late the night before to do just that and he didn’t get any overtime pay.
(And, cut to scene: five guys are sprinting across the parking lot to their car)
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Where was I? Oh yeah…juke joints. I heard an early song by The Band this past Saturday and it sparked an idea for this here Rock & Roll Three-Way. I have three bow-down tracks for you, all of which are set in Roadhouses, Honky Tonks and Juke Joints. For those of you unfamiliar with these joints here is one description of what a Juke Joint is or could be:
Juke joint (or jook joint) is the vernacular term for an informal establishment featuring music, dancing, gambling, and drinking, primarily operated by African American people in the southeastern United States. The term “juke” is believed to derive from the Gullah word joog, meaning rowdy or disorderly.
Classic juke joints found, for example, at rural crossroads, catered to the rural work force that began to emerge after the emancipation. Plantations workers and sharecroppers needed a place to relax and socialize following a hard week, particularly since they were barred from most white establishments. Set up on the outskirts of town, often in ramshackle buildings or private houses, juke joints offered food, drink, dancing and gambling for weary workers. Owners made extra money selling groceries or moonshine to patrons, or providing cheap room and board. (Wikipedia)
Don’t you just want to be there? What’s the next best thing to being there? Hearing about it from those who have been there and done it.
Just imagine that there is one magical dirt road where these three haunts are within earshot of one another. What’s that you say? No such place exists, you say? Sure it does…right here where Highway 61 meet Highway 49.
Courtesy of The 6149, here is another Rock & Roll Three-Way: > 1. The Doors: Roadhouse Blues >> 2. The Band: Honky Tonk >>> 3. Big Joe Turner: Juke Joint Blues
How about if we let The Lizard King set the stage? Too Bad Jim dusts off a drunken rant and sets the stage for what a road trip to a roadhouse should go down like. Seems like he’d done that kinda thing before, eh?
“Roadhouse Blues” – The Doors
“Everything is fucked up…as usual“, says Jim. Ah, to have walked a mile in your shoes, Jim ol’ boy…or at least to have been on the inside of one of your thousand yard stares looking out into the chaos of the fucked-upness. The end is always near, indeed…
“Honky Tonk” – Levon & The Hawks (The Band)
Listen to Richard Manuel sing raw on this barrel-house burner. This early incarnation of the The Band was still being billed as “Levon & The Hawks”. Levon’s influence ran much deeper than top billing for the group. Have a listen to this southern thang…
“Juke Joint Blues” – Big Joe Turner
No stranger to Juke Joints himself, Big Joe sings about the trials and tribulations of playing the circuit in this slow, grooving burner.
Here is a bonus cut for you. In 2008, Cedric Burnside & Lightnin’ Malcom put out an album called, “Two Man Wrecking Crew“. “Burnside”? Yeah, that Burnside. Cedric Burnside is the grandson of the late and great R.L. Burnside. Cedric is carrying ont he family tradition in fine form. He and his playing partner have since renamed themselves, The Juke Joint Duo.
I have this album and love it for it’s simplicity and fresh take on the Mississippi Hill Country stomp. My fave rave track is the tribute cut to Ol’ R.L.. Check out this vid as The Juke Joint Duo play this tribute to a master juke joint bluesman, played…you guessed it…in a true blue juke joint. Enjoy.
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“R.L. Burnside” - The Juke Joint Duo: Cedric Burnside & Lightnin’ Malcom
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Speaking of R.L….R.L. used to play his pal Junior Kimbrough’s own Juke Joint. This blues fan visited it and asked permission to take a bit of footage. This here is the real deal shit, people.
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